There are concrete possibilities that the International Monetary Fund can receive a dowry additional funds of approximately $400 billionneeded to tackle the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. This was reported by Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi.
Christine Lagarde, however, was more realistic: the director of the Fund expects an increase of 316 billion, a share that the G20 members are said to have undertaken to pay at the Washington summit.
However, this would not be a particularly ambitious goal, since the financial institution is looking for much more substantial reserves (600 billion dollars) to increase their assistance capacity.
The firepower of the Fondo currently it is around 380 billion, not sufficient to shore up the European debt crisis since the shares invested by the IMF in non-European projects absorb a substantial part of the budget.
Furthermore, given the substantial failure of European policy in building the anti-crisis firewall (net of the interventions already underway amounting to only 500 billion euros), an IMF increase of a further 600 billion would bring into play a more effective weapon in the fight against the European crisis.
Azumi instead focused attention on the glass half full: “It is very probable that we will be able to reach a sum close to 400 billion. This will make it possible to reassure and stabilize the world economy”.
